GamesRadar - Xbox Features

The secret shops of Akihabara (Xbox)

Nov 19, 2009

Whether you’re looking for electronics, hardware, anime, games, or anything remotely geeky, you’ll find it in Akihabara, a bustling shopping district in Tokyo, Japan. Located just north of Tokyo Station, Akihabara is really three towns in one. It’s a haven for tech hobbyists, a paradise for anime fans and gamers, and a popular tourist destination. ...

Games that were hated before they were released (Goldeneye: Rogue Agent)

Nov 19, 2009

Some games just never stand a chance, do they? Hated on from the moment they’re announced for a variety of reasons, they’re critically stoned by journos and gamers long before anyone lays finger on pad. The following titles all fall into this category of pre-release hatred. Whether they betrayed their series’ heritage, alienated PC gamers or their developer simply shouted his big fat mouth off too much; these games loved ...

Fanboys: 8 reasons why they deserve some respect (Xbox)

Nov 17, 2009

To be called a 'fanboy' is one of the worst insults in gaming. It suggests a misguided person characterised by an irrational devotion to a piece of software or soulless mega-corporation. A person incapable of intelligent thought. A person that is a despised twat.

But wait. Let's cut them some slack for a moment and think what purpose fanboys actually serve (beyond being a dumping ground for derision). We fancied a bit of a challenge, ...

Useless game heroes who couldn’t save the girl (Conker: Live and Reloaded)

Nov 3, 2009

There are several sure-fire ways to check for heroic DNA in a video game character. An addiction to wearing tank tops (the more torn the better). Crew cuts so kempt you could grate cheese on their craniums. But the one thing sewn into the heart of every true hero’s genetic makeup is an unwavering talent for saving the girl.

Above: Not a hero (we’re assuming the racoon’s a chick)

Sure, it might be a bit sexist, ...

The Top 7… Things we hate about sports games (Madden NFL 08)

Nov 2, 2009

Where are the flying cars? For years, our science fiction promised us that in the 21st century, we’d all be zipping around the country with speed and style in shiny hovering vehicles. Sadly, we all know how that turned out. It sure seems like we were made the same kinds of promises about our “next generation” of sports games too. ...

Halloween masks! (Halo)

Oct 30, 2009

So you didn’t have a Halloween costume this year. Boo hoo. Well, GamesRadar will come to the rescue yet again. All you need is some paper and a printer (and some scissors to cut out the eye holes), and you’ve got yourself a quick last-minute Halloween costume in, well, a minute! You’ll be the star of party. Or you’ll just be laughed at ...

50 3D milestones in gaming (Xbox)

Oct 30, 2009

All this week our friends at 3D World have been looking at the landmark 3D titles in gaming, starting in the arcades and charting the most cutting-edge advances in 3D technology all the way to the games that we play on home consoles today.

Night Driver (Atari, 1976)

Generally held to be the very first 3D video game, Atari’s Night Driver managed to conjure a 3D experience out of very little computing horsepower by ...

Gaming's freakiest monsters: A biological study (Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil)

Oct 28, 2009

Perhaps better than any other creative medium, videogames have managed to recreate entire ecosystems of imaginary creatures and presented them in an observable context. Books and movies may offer detailed glimpses of anatomy and behavior, but only in videogames does the observer interact with organisms and experience behaviors first hand. ...

The 37 greatest zombie triumphs (Doom 3)

Oct 27, 2009

You don’t have to see or play absolutely everything on this list to be a proper zombie connoisseur, but you should at least know them. These are the genre’s defining relics. Some are responsible for the very creation of the zombie mythos, others adapted and advanced it, while the rest simply encapsulate it so exquisitely that they must be experienced. This may not be everyone’s definitive list of zombie lore ...

The Top 7... Scariest games you've never played (Xbox)

Oct 26, 2009

We fear the unknown. Psychologists have proven that nothing troubles the human mind more, in fact, than that which cannot be predicted. Our phobias of death, darkness and strangers all stem from this single, simple truth. Apparently, so does our predictable taste in horror games. ...

Game characters that deserved to die (Conker: Live and Reloaded)

Oct 23, 2009

Death and video games go together like a big heart attack-baiting burger and an extra five slices of cheddar. But just because they’re the best of mates, it doesn’t mean certain characters should go looking for the Grim Reaper through their own reckless actions. Sadly, that’s exactly want the following group of death-wishers all do. And whether it’s through their own stupidity, being huge wimps or just dying in embarrassing fashion, these guys ...

18 awesome games that died at retail (Metal Arms: Glitch in the System)

Oct 21, 2009

There’s a widespread notion in the videogame industry that game reviews can have a profound impact on game sales, and for the most part the evidence bears that out. But as tempting as it is to gloat about the supposed power that we, the videogame press, hold over the livelihoods of publishers and developers, it’s not always true. In fact, history is littered with countless examples of megahit games that had originally been ripped to shreds by reviewers ...

An incomplete history of time-travel games (Time Splitters: Future Perfect)

Oct 21, 2009

“We find ourselves in a bewildering world. We want to make sense of what we see around us and to ask: What is the nature of the universe? What is our place in it and where did it and we come from? Why is it the way it is? When will we get to the cowboy level?”

– Professor Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

Time travel and videogames are a perfect fit. ...

The top videogame controller buttons - Part 1 (Xbox)

Oct 20, 2009

Back before you were a gamer, we didn’t have the multi-button, clickable-thumbstick, solar-powered controller gizmos you have today. We used to have to invite friends over and work together to push down the A-button because it was too stiff to move on our own. If we were lucky, we’d get two, maybe three good presses in before it got stuck and Mario just had to hope the rest of the level was flat. ...

Scandal! 10 true scare stories about videogames (Xbox)

Oct 15, 2009

Let’s pretend, for a second, that everything bad anyone ever said about videogames was true. Why, we’d all be suicidal pixel-junkies, protected from our desperate self-hatred only by our own slovenliness! The world would be safe from our sociopathic, car-jacking, handgun-happy death wishes merely because we were too busy installing an IV drip to provide us with the powdered-cheese sustenance necessary to gain another level in World of Warcraft! ...

10 amazing 'one-button' iPod Touch and iPhone games (Xbox)

Oct 13, 2009

Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch have no tactile buttons at all for gaming. But it doesn't matter. The ‘prod mechanic’ is ideal for a platform sometimes problematic when it comes to precision controls and the simplistic, single finger approach has given us a whole bunch of addictive, immediate, accessible games. Here are 10 of the best.

Canabalt

Buy it from the App Store

The Flash sensation makes a ...

The Top 7... Lamest party games (Fuzion Frenzy)

Oct 12, 2009

It’s comforting, isn’t it? Though our hobby is famous for igniting stupid flame wars and for inspiring stubborn fanboy bias, all gamers – no matter what their console or genre preference – can agree on, and rally around, one unassailable truth. Party games suck. ...

Same name, completely different game (Fable)

Oct 9, 2009

We absolutely know that you've been waiting with eager anticipation for a feature to come along that catalogues examples of new games that share an identical name with an old game. It doesn't happen very often, so it's genuinely exciting when it does. Anyway, we've written that feature, and this is it. Direct all messages of thanks and amazement to the comments thread. K? Cheers.

Afrika | PS3 | 2009

The new Afrika: Is ...

Mind-blowingly underwhelming celebrity performances (James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing)

Oct 8, 2009

They actually got paid for that crap, you know ...

6 things about games that aren't true (Xbox)

Oct 6, 2009

Anything new and relatively untested will be subject to more misconceptions than facts. Ridiculous and sensational news reports about the seedy underbelly of Animal Crossing and batshit-insane lawyers like Jack Thompson have diluted the truth about gaming. Combine their ignorance with our own misconceptions as gamers, and there’s a lot of nonsense to sort out. We can’t sort it all out, but we can at least hit some of the bigger points of confusion with our hammer of truth and brief internet research ...